The present invention relates to a storage system configuring a storage unit that carries out control to store data in a storage area and more particularly to a technique for migrating configuration and data of the storage unit.
Hitherto, in a storage system that communicably connects a host unit such as task server which the user uses and a storage unit, the storage unit carries out control to store the data from a host unit in a storage area which the storage unit such as hard disk drive provides. To use the storage system, it is necessary to set and hold configuration information in the storage unit.
The configuration information is various pieces of setting information on physical and logical configurations such as a configuration of connection paths (also called logical paths) recognized by the host unit and a configuration of a storage volume of a logical device etc. ensured on a storage device between the host unit and the storage unit. The physical configuration information is information on, for example, a physical port and a physical disk. The logical configuration information is information on, for example, a logical port and a logical device logically configured and set on the physical configuration.
Conventionally, when a configuration of a storage unit or data stored in a storage volume is transferred to other storage unit, for example, in the case of replacing the old storage unit with a new storage unit, the following procedure involving a personal operation and a computer processing has been necessary. For example, in replacing the old storage unit with the new storage unit, firstly, a person in charge thereof understands the content of configuration information held on memory in the old storage unit, and carries out the environment setting work so that the same configuration as that of the old storage unit can be achieved in the new storage unit. The person in charge thereof is a person who utilizes and administers a storage unit and a storage system including the storage unit, such as a system administrator. Migration of the configuration corresponds to the migration of the configuration information. Then, after setting the new storage unit, the stored data in the old storage unit is copied to the new storage unit. That is, the old storage unit and the new storage unit are connected to the host unit or control device, etc. that can implement data copy therebetween, and the data copy from the old storage unit to the new storage unit is carried out. Or, the stored data in the old storage unit is temporarily backed up into a backup medium such as a magnetic tape, and the backup data is restored to the new storage unit. Or, if the new and old storage units have a remote copy function of directly copy-processing the data of the storage volume such as a logical device, it is possible to migrate the data by the use of this remote function.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-102374, a technique that carries out changes in access paths associated with data migration between storage units is described.